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Wednesday, January 4, 2017

flushed the fridge

First supply run of the year. Before I even loaded up on stuff, I had another task waiting for me when I got home. My chest fridge has been long overdue for a clean out. I keep a plastic tub inside to catch any gooey stuff and the very bottom is lined with water bottles that pretty much stay frozen (cleaning goo out of the very bottom of the fridge is no fun at all). Found quite a bit of "gooey" at the bottom of the tub. Got all the good stuff off the top and just dumped the rest in a garbage bag. Gave the tub a good heavy bleach bath and I am good to go for at least 6 months - as long as nothing spills. Celebrated the fresh start with a little Fireball. 65,74,48,0,C

6 comments:

Would your electrical system support a conventional refrigerator ? I have seen some people put extra insulation on the outside of a conventional refrigerator and reduce the compressor run time quite a bit.You have probably already evaluated a Dometic or similar propane powered fridge.

Sam...It has been my experience that using a standard AC chest freezer as a refrigerator is the most sensible option. The best part is, the cold doesn't pour out every time you open the door of a chest style. Adding extra insulation to a chest freezer is not an option since the heat extracted is radiated out through the sides. For awhile I tried an add on thermostat to run it as a refrigerator - setting the temperature at 42° but have since found that it really doesn't need to be on all the time. When the unit is constantly on, the compressor cycles on and off multiple times during the day. At start up, the compressor draws almost 900 watts for a few seconds then settles and runs at 165 watts. As long as I keep it packed pretty full, simply plugging it in for 3 hours a day keeps everything cold enough and it only surges once. The rest of the day it is off - and no 900 watts surges on my system. This time of year I don't even have to run it very often because the overnight temperatures do the work - I just open the lid before I go to bed and let the ambient air temperature do the work.